Groups of computing entities may include servers in a server farm, networked computing entities at an Enterprise, collections of embedded entities such as printers, household appliances, medical equipment at a hospital, etc. Typically, the management of such groups is performed by one or more administrators on a periodic basis. For example, to install a new software upgrade at servers in a server farm, the administrator carries out management operations on each server. The administrator uses his or her expertise to carry out the upgrades in a complex, and time-consuming process. Administrators typically use their own expertise to manually schedule, and launch, management operations in appropriate sequence. Management operations may include system updates, rebooting individual computing entities, loading new software components, etc. In some cases, management operations may be applied to subgroups of computing entities, such as all the machines used in a manufacturing process.
Deciding whether an entity (PC, Server, Service, Application) is in a management-ready state depends on properties that are static (location, configuration, name, identity related attributes) and dynamic. Dynamic attributes have values that may change over the course of the management operation life cycle. Static information may be retrieved from sources such as databases. No such resources are available for dynamic attributes.